Whispers With Angels
by roulette rouge
Summary: Sometimes the coldest of wars is the one which wages too deep within, too far from reach, and there's nothing left for the cruelty of the world to latch onto. Not when the casualty is the soul. Slight AU; Roe/OC. DISCONTINUED.
1. A Prelude to Farewell

A/N: I've been dying to write a BoB fic since I saw it on Spike not too long ago. And now that I've got my computer back, it's writin' time! Enjoy. :)

Disclaimer - I don't own Band of Brothers. It belongs to Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Story based off TV Series, not the IRL!men themselves.

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><p>I've lost count of the nights I'd lie awake and listen to my father pray.<p>

He never notices that I'm there with him consciously, as it's late when he rests his head beside my mother, searching for sleep but finding none. He never knows that I can hear every word exhaled on one breathless note of longing, when he opens his supplication to the secrecy of darkness. And when the first desperate hiss of his voice reaches my ears, I feel as if I'm intruding – when he surrenders his every thought, his every plea, his every human failing that would strip away the sympathy in the eyes of God. He empties them into my mother's back as she sleeps peacefully, unaware of her husband's anguish.

It's during these unceremonious confessionals, with the smell of the old musty cot lingering in my nose, that I witness the breakdown of the man whose immortality had seemed only natural for me to believe. Over and over again.

_I don't want to fight. Not again, please God. _

_I don't want to fight. Please, don't make me fight._

_Let it be done. Let it be over with and done before I'm called to go._

There is no son to take his place. He will have to go. Leave all of us behind. My mother – who loves her husband with such steadfast devotion and selfless understanding that only a woman of her stature could emulate. Even as his fine features had begun to lose their beauty of clarity, his eyes dulling as youthful dreams begin to expire, and threads of silver weave through his hair. Even as he struggles to salvage food for our table, put clothes on our backs, keep a roof over our heads to ward off the chill of night. There would never be another man that could ever hope to replace him. If he died, she would die too – if she did not waste away slowly with the lonely name of widow hanging over her every endeavor.

But the tragedy of his departure would rest heavily on Mary-Anne. She will always have been too young to remember his face, the soft rumble of his voice when he spoke, and how strangely small she seemed when he wrapped her up in his great arms and held her there, swathed in the security of them like a blanket. She wouldn't remember the prickling sensation of his beard against her face or the warm callus cocoon of his hands when he counted her little fingers to her, one by one. It will be no great loss to her - the man that had brought her into this world. He would no longer be the brave soldier who had once fought for her on the barren land of his forefathers. The loving soul who, with every blood-filled cavern, every corner, every secret place in his heart, _loved_ her. But would she remember if he left now, stolen from us by the rebirth of obligation - swept away by the rising tide of war?

And the thought of my father's presence being taken away from us set an ache in my heart. One so omnipresent, so all-consuming, that it could scarcely beat without feeling the pangs of such a dangerous truth.

What son of this family will go in his stead? There are none to be found. All we have to offer is comfort, love and selfish entreaty to keep him here, where we know he belongs. No heir can inherit his father's misplaced sense of honor in battle, take up the mantle for a man too old to be skirting the barriers of death in this great conflict. In the eyes of civilized society, we are unfit to fight for him. It will have to be my father, if the time to answer his nation's call ever comes.

In heavy silence, I prepare myself for the inevitable.

* * *

><p>Everywhere in town the signs of the war are becoming more apparent with each passing day. Starched, olive green uniforms walk the streets, mingling among the commoners of this country and impressing upon them the importance of the fight. I would walk by one of them, hear them describe the glory and honor of the soldier's life, lie through their teeth as their eyes plead with every man they encounter to stay far away from such a world.<p>

They don't know the truth – the harsh reality of nightmares, of wounds that will never sink down into the depths of memory. All they hear is the promise of the cause and the reverence and especially the money. Everyone is on rationing. Less clothes, less food, less of everything. Fifty bucks a month is everything a man could ever hope for in scant times such as these. He'd shake the hand of the reluctant messenger, unaware of the look in the recruiter's face when he signed the form, signed his life away to bloodshed and suffering.

It's hard to recognize, such a look. But not if you have to see the repercussions of such pain in the mild face of your loved ones.

I try to remain inconspicuous as the idea begins to take root. That perhaps there is such thing as a living heir to the burden of my father's legacy. In the view of civilian, and otherwise enlightened, society it is every sort of wrong that most women could never dream of committing. A woman couldn't fight. She could only hope. Have faith that her lover, her husband, the man in whom she had invested her every furtive wish and desire…would be strong enough to return to her when the final days of the war had come at last.

But I am resolved. When the recruiter isn't looking, I steal a registration form off the clothed white table and hurriedly fold it away into hiding. Nervously, I finger the paper, tucked away into the dark cloth hole of my pocket…all the way home.

* * *

><p>Weeks have passed, turning into months.<p>

And before long, it's here.

The day I must leave my home...for what might be forever.

When all is quiet and only the footsteps of the wind against the house outside could be heard, I sit up in my bed, looking long and hard at the darkest region of the room where I could see my father's unmoving shape. I didn't dare go to him, ask his forgiveness for the shame I am about to inflict on the entire family's unsoiled name, and all I could spare for farewell is a thought for him. My mother too.

For a moment, I linger and listen to Mary-Anne's soft croons of sleep, sweeping so easily across the heavy silence of the night – they are committed to memory and I throw the covers off of me, the pads of my feet settling against the cold floor.

It's near dawn, though the horizon is still dotted with pale stars, the moon altogether gone from her nocturnal perch as the sky awaits the morning sun. Underneath my cot, I had stashed a knapsack full of clothes, a small ration of food and the compass my father had given me when I was just a child. Around my neck, his crucifix hangs like an anchor, rooting my soul to this place if I should die somewhere across those strange, uncharted waters. It would return here. Perhaps it will be a small comfort in the face of the days to come.

Gently, ever so gently, I press my palm to the door, turning the pitted brass knob. An ear-shattering groan resonates throughout the structure of the house; I pause, heart slamming against the cage of my ribs in protest. When I'm certain that my reckless movement has gone undetected, I push it open a little further, a little more, and with much patience and determination in my careful motions, I'm free at last. I coax the door closed, back into its former, unruffled state, and take my first steps across the porch as a self-proclaimed enemy of the family name.

In a sheltered corner, my mother and father's rocking chairs sway slightly in the shifts of breeze that pass them by. They are angled toward each other, the wooden arms grazing as if they are reaching for their companion, and I can picture them sitting there even now, from where I stand in this farewell scene - mother knitting and father reading his newspaper, their hands connecting them even in their separate worlds.

_Goodbye, _I mouth to those lonely sentinels. They give no reply – I expected no more – and I force myself forward, propelling my reluctant body down the sloping steps that lead me around the corner of the house.

Outside, propped up on a rusty nail to the panels (father keeps it for shaving, as the well is not so far off from this convenient spot), a mirror glows a sort of soft shade of quicksilver in the gloomy twilight of coming daybreak. Already, the rims of the sky are beginning to turn a milky sort of color, like a mother's pearls, opening up from the shell of night. I'm running out of time to make my escape. Before long, there will be rustling behind the walls and the commotion of the day will begin, bringing about the unavoidable question of my whereabouts.

By then, I must be long gone. Nowhere to be found, not a even trace of my existence to be recognized.

Scissors in hand, I sigh as I confront my reflection, my head still engulfed in the murky remnants of gray-washed starlight. With a grimace, I lift my hand to my hair, drawing the shears through the strands as efficiently as possible while the sleepy silence of the house slithers outside into the cool morning mist. My fingers tremble violently with each cut; even they know the futility of my crusade.

I didn't spare a look into the mirror until after I had buried all evidence of my intentions, covering every lock of hair with mounds of dirt that lodged itself into the crescents of my fingernails. Upon standing, with the first light breaking over the edge of the world, I caught a glimpse in the reflective surface, now a blinding shade of gray. Absently, on impulse, my fingers searched through the empty spaces my hair had left behind.

Looking away from the glass, I turn then to the side of my home. Once more, for the sake of remembrance alone, I touch the face of what so tenderly holds within its shelter my childhood, my family, everything I've ever known. And after I utter a quick prayer, for the people I love who doze so peacefully inside, I shoulder my knapsack and flee toward the dusty lane leading to town.

Because if I don't run, God knows I will only turn back.

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><p>Clear daylight streams through a thin partition of mist. I've reached the borders of the little town by now, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, on letting each measured breath course through me. Keep me calm. I have to remain calm.<p>

Already, the uniforms have set up their table, the white cloth just as white and pure and unmarked by dirt-encrusted farmer's hands as the day before, and the one preceding it. A nervous hand threads through what's left of my hair. In my head, a prayer and a mantra blare over the sounds of hysteria taking over my mottled emotions.

_God, give me strength. _

I approach the uniform, standing ever so straight and unflinching in the watery sunlight, blinking wearily at the townspeople that pass him by. He nods politely to a pair of young girls that bid him good day. No other word is spared for the fleeting interlude…and all is forgotten between them.

Before I can open my mouth to speak, to address him properly, he detects me in his peripheral vision. His head snaps toward me, those piercing eyes taking in every insignificant detail of my appearance. Inside, I'm falling apart, mortal fear chipping away at the last of my resolve. _Be brave, Clara. Have courage for your family, for your father. They need you to be strong for them._

It takes every last shred of reason within my knowledge to keep myself from thinking, from wondering - _what if he can see through the short hair and my father's oversized clothes? What if he knows I'm girl?_

If he's even considering such a possibility, he's not made it apparent to me. Instead, his expression switches to a stony sort of resolve, something like reluctance in its purest form. "I assume you're interested in enlisting in the Airborne? If not, Marines, Navy and Air Force are just a stone's throw down the road. Recruiters of all sorts are hitting every other small town now."

The completed form lies in wait in my knapsack. I reach for it, opening the flap and taking out the form that's become somewhat crumpled from passing through my nervous hands. Confused, the man takes the form.

"I don't remember talking to you…" He says, looking me over once again, perhaps hoping it will conjure up some forgotten image of our nonexistent conversation. However, he decides it's unimportant and, with a rapid shake of his head, switches tactics. "Have you been examined by a doctor for physical health? Any conditions or food allergies the Airborne should know about?"

"No, sir, I'm healthy as a horse," I reply. "Our local doctor took a look at me just two days before. Filled out the form and everything."

The soldier sifted through the papers I had given to him, quickly scanning every form and checking every signature. At last, he returned his attention to me, where I stood before him, my entire body rigid with anticipation. He looks unimpressed. "You're a little small for the Army, boy. A little young, too. You might make a fine medic. What makes you so certain you want to be in the Airborne?"

"My family's starving…"I pause, wetting my lips in the midst of the wordless suspension. "I don't know what else to do to help them. No skills, no job, no schoolin' past the fifth grade. Nothin'. This is the only option I have left to turn to."

Something in his gaze softens and, for a moment, he doesn't move. Drawn out minutes pass, many of them in fact, before he blinks and reshuffles the papers with renewed purpose. "Well, welcome to the 101st," he says, voice cracking. He clears his throat, continuing on, "report to Camp Toccoa on July 21st for regimental assignment and enlistment. Physical training begins August 1st."

I nod, my mouth too dry to speak and I can feel my own fear starting to gather my throat into a dangerous choke-hold. There's no turning back now; I attempt a small smile, even in light of such a dreadful epiphany, one that may very well hold the right cards for my soul in this game of fate. But as hard as I try, it only ends up feeling like a grimace.

As I turn to leave, a voice pulls me back. It's the recruiter again; he's pleading with me in that same way he beseeches all civilians to turn back, though he's not permitted to make his concerns audible to anyone but his own conscience. A shadow of doubt turns his features to stone, the one that asks him if he's a man of country...or a messenger of death. It's that unnatural shade flickering in and out of his heavy gaze that makes my blood run cold.

He addresses me one last time. "Good luck, kid," he tells me. "You'll need it on the front, if you ever manage to get there."


	2. Stranger at the Station

A/N: Thanks for the feedback on the first chapter! Glad you guys enjoyed it. We get to meet some of the boys in this chapter. So! Without further ado, I present to you the next installment of our little tale. Enjoy! :)

**I know there's some things in here that need to be edited (switches from present tense to past tense, grammatical errors, etc), but I'll go back and fix 'em later.**

Disclaimer - I don't own Band of Brothers. It belongs to Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Story based off TV Series, not the IRL!men themselves.

**_*Formerly entitled The Medicine Man._**

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><p>The next day is that of a new life stemming from the ashes of the old.<p>

August 19, 1942.

I've been traveling all morning to reach New Orleans. Around ten, I had the great fortune of hitching a ride with a genial, tobacco-chewing older woman whose leathery brown arms and fondness for conversation made her an interesting travel companion, if nothing else could be said about her.

_Be careful out there, kid! This city will eat you alive if you cross her!_

She had driven off without another word, just a dubious glance in my direction.

Here I am now, walking through the double doors of the pleasantly warm bus station, the city clamor and a wide variety of people greeting me as I come in. Four lines neatly form before rows of tellers, trading tickets on the next bus out for a fee. I rattle the change in my pocket, recalling the amount – fifty cents had been all I could bring myself to take; t should be enough for bus fare.

In all honesty, I'm not so certain about what to expect – once I arrive at boot camp, that is. If I were not so numb, so cut off from my own sense of physical self, perhaps I would expect nothing and everything all at once. Father had once called it an out of body experience. This distance from the mind, as he described it. The way he spoke of such a feeling, so slow, so painfully, called to my attention the possibility of his encountering it at least once in his life, if not more. I had never heard of something so terrifying, much less suffered the bodily state myself. If I were not so moved by the evidence now that it exists, perhaps I wouldn't have thought it real in the first place.

Father never spoke freely about his encounter with the great monster that he called war, much less what led him into the thick of it, and so I have little to go on from his experience. We all remain blessedly innocent, knowing nothing of the cost of his survival, and mother has always been so tireless in her efforts to keep it that way. Even so, it has never kept my curiosity from wandering the possibilities of his sufferings.

So many lives he must have been forced to take just to come home, to be tormented by the memory of the faceless loved ones from whom he stole a beloved son, a devoted father, a favorite brother. He didn't know them. He had never had the pleasure of their name or to hear their laugh and listen to the sound of their voice mingling with the sweetness of the afternoon summer air.

And yet, the look in his eyes whenever he is far off somewhere behind a blank canvas face, lost in the sea of his own memoirs. I've never been able to fully explain it, but perhaps that barren sort of gleam is regret. Wishing he could give back what had never been his to take in the first place – but by swearing the oath to his country, his hand was inevitably forced.

For the both of them, I imagine.

My chest begins to pull tightly in on itself, like a web of taut strings; the pangs have started already. I slip my hands into the pockets of my slacks, head bowed so low that my chin brushes the collar of my father's shirt. Wash day is tomorrow; this one must not have yet seen mother's laundry tub. I take in a breath, an inconspicuous one. I've already made myself a target of the masses by dressing in clothes that are not only disheveled and creased from too much wear, but also drape over my too-small frame like a billowing curtain over a tiny window. My suspenders seem to be the only thing keeping my clothes firmly in place.

The musk of his inherent scent dances lightly beneath the current of spicy aftershave. I could almost cry, but to do so would be an admittance of defeat. I wish so ardently to go home and tell them all I love them, that I wish them full and beautiful lives even if they never see me again.

All chatter between the teller and the tall man in front of me halted suddenly; he picked up his suitcase and ambled off in the opposite direction, probably to catch his bus. At once, the young woman, her red lipstick gleaming in a patch of sunlight falling gracefully across her mouth and chin, assessed the look about me. She seemed unaffected by my dress.

"Can I help you, sir?"

A rush of relief stole through me like a ghost in the night. Unseen, unheard, and yet still a potent, unavoidable feeling. I smiled at her, tipping my cap. "Yes, ma'am. What's your nearest stop to Toccoa?"

She checks a list, quickly searching through the columns. "Stephens County, Georgia – you're in luck. With all the boys heading for training there, we've got a bus heading straight for Toccoa itself. One-way ticket?"

"I don't plan on coming back anytime soon."

The look on my face when I spoke those words aloud must have caught her attention; she offers a small, sympathetic smile. "Understandable. Two dollars for a ticket to Toccoa, if you please."

The ghost of relief is dashed to pieces, a blood-rush of panic taking its place. My head pounds, my entire body smarts. "What's that you said? _Two_ dollars?"

"Yes, sir," she replies, a hint of question in her voice. "The standard fare for a bus crossin' state lines."

"But…but all I have to my name is a knapsack and fifty cents," I stutter, tripping over irrelevant words. I tear a viciously shaking hand through the hacked remains of my hair. _Oh dear heavens above…what am I going to do now? _"I don't got that kind of money."

"I'm sorry," she says. "Really, I am. But I just can't give you a ticket if you can't pay."

It feels as if my very soul is throbbing with hysteria. My fingers tightly grip a lock of short hair. _Oh, God. Oh, dear. What else can I do? No money, no ticket. Well, that's it. I'm out of luck. Time to go –_

And then, as I'm wallowing in my own dismal thoughts, an elegant white hand reaches forward, interrupting the morbid flow. I stop breathing for a moment, glancing over my shoulder just in time to hear the stranger speak. _What on God's green earth?_

"_Two tickets for Toccoa, ma'am. One for me, one for him_." The sweet, rolling drawl perfumes the air, making it thrum with the cadence only a native of Orleans could ever imitate. This time, it's a man talking – a soft-spoken young man, perhaps with only a few more years to his name than me. Graciously, he adds, "thank you very much."

The teller blushes a little, her cheeks turning rosy pink as she slides the tickets under the glass. "You both have a safe trip."

"Will do," the stranger replies quickly, taking both documents as my brain momentarily slips into a daze.

I manage to turn, the face of my savior sliding into view - handsome cheekbones, a long, square jaw cleanly shaven, and deep, dark eyes that, on first glance, boast a warm, nearly black shade of brown. However, as he looks up from his own voucher and fixes his gaze on me, the warmth of them, I realize, is misleading. They're dark all right, but the only name I can think to describe them in terms of color is that last moment before the sun falls behind the sky and the stars crack open their bleary eyes. A sort of skyline indigo.

His lips are pursed slightly, expression thoughtful, gentle even, but hardly open. "Take it. Go on…it's all yours."

There's a million questions worth answering, all of them blazing through my head like ballistic missiles. Only one makes it out of my mouth. "Thank you. If you don't mind my asking - what'd you do that for_?"_

Confusion invades the sharp angles of his face, those gaunt features contradicted by the warmth and softness of his demeanor. "Well, I sure won't leave a young fella like you to fend for himself. Not in this city."

He provides no more explanation, only pats me on the shoulder, a friendly, almost paternal gesture. "Take care of yourself."

As he walks away, I manage to stammer out a feeble _thank you _before the gratitude slinks away into a perplexed sort of whimper. He's gone before I have a chance to express my appreciation of his gallantry properly, shifting into the crowd so easily, gracefully, like he's dancing in the middle of a crowded room. His dark head disappears into the tumult of the crowd, his gait quick, as if it were an agile waltz.

Still under the effects of my chance encounter, I lead myself outside into the garish light of early afternoon. The bus is waiting, its idle engine rumbling, choking black fumes rising up into the seamless blue sky above. All thoughts of running back home are pushed out of sight and out of mind as the vehicle appears before me. There _is _no going back, I should know that well by now. I should have the words _there can be_ _no escape _branded into my head, memorized backwards and forwards, so I could recite them without a second thought.

I grip my ticket just a little tighter, sending out a short prayer of thanks to the man that helped me get it. If it weren't for him, I would've been stranded here, in between worlds – nowhere to run, no home to return to, at least not for now.

_Thank you, God, for sending an angel to me._

I'm the last passenger to board the bus; the doors slam behind me. I'm no longer a free young woman, but an imprisoned man.

* * *

><p>The first eight or so hours of the ride to Toccoa, I slept. After so much walking down the sidelines of that lonely, one-way road, the second I eased into my seat I realized how tired I really was. As the bus rolled forward, it created a soothing lull, sort of like a mother rocking her baby to sleep. My eyes grew heavy, despite my fascination with the city, its sidewalks mottled with such variety of countless people, the buildings ranging from short and squat to tall and statuesque. Everything in New Orleans has a personality. Everything has a certain fiery rhythm from which the beauty of the city springs forth, inspiring in every visitor and citizen alike a sense of wonder, of life. This place and its natives are like a heartbeat to a vivacious body – without one, the other couldn't survive.<p>

A few minutes after the bus left the station, I fell asleep, always dreamless. I hardly ever dream, but when I do, it's always so lovely, so enthralling an image tumbling through my unconscious brain that I don't want to wake up. Pictures blur into shapeless colors, frenzies of light spinning through my head like dancing fireflies. I can remember arching my neck back, exposing my face to the sun, while underneath me the thunder of hooves rumbles across the grassland. My hands are free of the reins, arms pulsating with the sting of the harsh wind against them. I'm laughing…laughter bubbling up from all the soft caverns of my soul.

And then…

_Hey. Hey, kid. Hey, kid wake up, would ya? I wanna go home. C'mon, nap time's over little fella. _

I stir, eyes cracking open, the blurry face of the driver too close to mine. Inching backward, I blink and focus returns to my sight. He's grimacing, a cigarette propped up between his lips, smoking rising and ashes tumbling down into my lap. The end sizzles. I sputter and cough.

"Oh these?" He motions to the white death hanging from the end of his mouth. "You'll get used to them, mark my words. Where you're goin', they do a lot of smokin'. You might even get into it. Who knows?"

He laughs, clouting me hard on the shoulder while I'm attempting to sit up. I fall back into my seat, hitting my head against the back of it. It smarts a little, dully so, and a few coarse rubs is all it takes to get the feeling back into those tingling nerves. The driver opens up the doors, wishes me luck and then starts the bus up again.

With my knapsack over my shoulder and my feet aimlessly shuffling through the dirt, I find myself wondering where I'm supposed to go now. I don't have money enough to afford a place to a place to sleep, not even the cheapest motel around.

"A straggler, huh?"

A stern, gravelly voice surprises me, coming up from behind. I turn to face a very tall, very formidable looking man dressed in fatigues and holding a clipboard.

"We'll have a hell of a time beating the lazy outta you, boy," he says, the hint of a delighted snarl in his voice making my skin pucker with goose bumps. I can feel the hair on the back of my neck prickle. "Your name?"

I manage to blurt out the name I'd put on the form, stuttering and falling all over each syllable as I spoke. "Kenneth Cale Jr., sir."

"Another dumb hick straight from the farm, I see," he grumbles petulantly, checking a name off his list. "As if we needed another one of those. Report to the main hall at 0800. You _do _know what time 0800 is, don't you kid?"

"Yes, sir. Eight o' clock, sir,"

"I suggest you get some sleep then," he replies. "Got a long ass day ahead of you."

* * *

><p>Upon finishing his parade of insults, the drill instructor remembers to mention there's a few opens cot left in the last barrack on block C, near the center of the camp. They'd only just opened the barracks for us a few days before, as the new recruits came in from different parts of the country, seeking their rightful spot in the Airborne and also a place to rest their head. He points in a vague northerly direction, somewhere behind him, and mutters something about the main hall under his breath. To myself, I make note of looking for the main hall.<p>

I can hear him laughing heartily to himself as I walk away, but I'm much too concerned with finding the building in question while groping through the pitch dark. It's so quiet that all I can hear is my own breathing, the hollow sound of my breath filtering through my lungs. It's such an unnerving thing, to be able to hear only one solitary thing.

It's as I finally begin to wonder if I'm lost that I hear it. Muted voices coming from the next column of buildings over. My ears prick upward, taking in as much of the noise as it can so that my feet can follow its trail.

The closer I get, the more the path reveals to me. Boxes of light spilling out of the barrack windows illuminate the blackened dirt. Laughter rises up out of the structure closest to me; I make my way toward it, reaching the door within moments. At the threshold of the sleeping quarters, I close my eyes, sucking in a long, reassuring breath. _Nothin' to it, Clara. Nothin' to it. Act natural. Don't talk to anyone._

I reach for the handle, turning the knob and wrenching open the door. Light darts forward to meet my eyes, blinding me for a moment. All has turned quiet. When my vision revives, I find myself the center of attention; everyone is staring at me. Most, if not all of them, have cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths.

No one addresses me, not just yet, but some of them look as if they're sifting through a few possibilities. My brain urges my body forward, but it just won't budge. One of them, with large dark eyes and a head of wild, untamable hair. Even sitting on his cot, legs crossed, and hunching over a stack of cards I can tell he's not the tallest of men.

"Peewee, do us all a favor," he says, and I fumble for a location to match his accent. Somewhere up north, a place that sees a lot of snow. "Remove the red hot poker from your ass. No one's getting skewered tonight, I can promise you that."

"Here, kid, have a smoke," another one interjects, his blonde hair falling into a mischievous pair of eyes. I notice, as he's biting back a laugh, that when he smiles his teeth seem to disappear into his mouth. "Good for you. Lots of nutrients."

"Skip, stop fucking with the kid." This time, it's a man with stark red hair, paired with freckles and equally impish brown eyes. He gives the blonde man a good shove, nearly knocking him off his bunk.

"Malarkey, c'mon," the wild-haired man says, flicking a card over one of many growing stacks. "Why else would they give 'em to us? You think the Army makes mistakes? _C'mon_."

"Oh yeah," says the blonde man. "We got ourselves a real _talker, _boys."

Malarkey, the one with the red hair, reaches over the cot to snatch the cigarette suspended in his friend's hand. "Gimme _that_,"

"Lights out in a few minutes. Might as well make your bed and lie in it." He looks up, dark eyes twinkling softly in the yellow-washed light. A wicked grin tugs upward at his apple cheeks. "We've got a hell of a day waiting for us tomorrow."

With a nod and a forced smile, I continue down the rows of cots, attempting to find one furthest away from the nosy bunch. I can hear them practically writhing in mirth behind me, their wheezy chuckles spouting upward into the ceiling. At the last row, I stop, finding an empty bed at last.

And there, that's when I see it.

I can't help but smile as that all too familiar shade of black hair against a canvas of milky white skin catches my eye. It's the man from the bus station. His eyes are closed, the black curtain of eyelashes falling across one pale cheek, and he sleeps quietly; he is unaware that such happenstance exists in a world outside of dreams.


	3. How The Fox Fooled the Hunter

Disclaimer - I don't own Band of Brothers. It belongs to Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Story based off TV Series, not the IRL!men themselves.

**_*Formerly entitled The Medicine Man._**

* * *

><p>It was a long day, held in both a terrifying and thrilling light for me all at once. The wide eyes of confusion grappled with the repugnant notes of the sweat-warmed anxieties hanging open in the air. I boasted my own inward emotions regarding the whole affair throughout the long hours; with the ferocity of dreamers, that only the pinkness of insides can contain, I waited. For expulsion, maybe. I hadn't know what to expect, but now, with all nerves contained and eyes shut down tight with sleepy contentment, I don't have to fear anymore. I'm here. That's all the fact that matters.<p>

Upon waking, at eight in the morning, right on the dot as it had been confirmed the night before, we were all told to stand in front of our cots and listen as intently as possible to instruction. It was explained to us that we would undergo several processes to qualify for basic training. Proof of legal age would have to be submitted. A simple physical exam would have to be passed. And a test would have to be taken, to pinpoint our talents so that they could exploit them for the Airborne's benefit by placing us in a specialty that would best suit those assets.

Throughout the entire speech, I felt my heart pound hard against my chest, a beating, blood-pushing instrument of life turned into a battering ram against its own bony, protective cage. Sweat gathered in the creases of my palms; I struggled to stand beneath the albatross of terror that crushed me beneath its weight. Prayers resonated throughout my near-empty head.

_I've gotten this far, haven't I? See me through to the end. If it is death, so be it, I won't say I'm not afraid. Lord knows I am. _

_But please…don't make me go home to them as a failure. I won't do it. I'm a coward, I know, but I won't go home empty-handed._

Before long, we are lead out of the barracks and into a large white room with bare walls and a cold, watery light hanging overhead. The lot of us had been wearing civilian clothes, looking like a wild bunch of mismatched boys hoping to get a slot in the prestigious new branch. And in the company of all these strong, well-built men, I'd felt the self-consciousness of inferiority set in; I'd considered my own pasty-white, shrunken arms and skeleton-thin fingers, gently prodding the ribs that felt like bony piano keys beneath my flannel shirt.

Part of me, a part I wished wasn't so significantly larger than most of my other, more logical thoughts of fear, was horrified at the blaringly obvious likelihood of my being discovered. Perhaps it was all of me that devoted itself to this one, all-consuming prospect. My condition didn't exactly meet Army standards, I was sure of that; physical training would be excessively brutal, a torturously long course of condition for war that was not meant for the faint of heart. Perhaps, if lady fortune stood by my side, her hand on my shoulder throughout this terrifying system of action, I'd be flat-chested enough in my emaciation for the examiner not to recognize the more feminine assets of mine. But to pass the health inspection itself? Only a miracle could get me through that.

As we filed into the _examination room, _which I read on the door, I searched the masses for any familiar faces from the night before. There were none to be found; after that, I had focused on my feet, glancing up only to look for an empty chair and a blank test.

I took my time in delaying the unavoidable.

But I could only stare at the same question, the same answers, the same white paper littered with black type letters before I was forced to get up and proceed to the next step.

* * *

><p>My pulse throbbed, and painfully so, with every step closer I took to that <em>medical examination room<em>.

There I am, sitting in nothing but too-big boxer shorts and a measly, hole-eaten undershirt that lost its white luster long ago. The walls are brown this time, sort of a light mahogany, and that's all. No placards, no framed certificates, no proof of experience. I can feel myself softly shaking down to the core of my bones, rattling the narrow vines of blood until they froth with panic.

_I'm as good as gone! In a few hours, I'll be out of here. They'll put me in jail. Father and mother will find out about this before the end of tonight. This is it. And I didn't even get to pay that man back that helped me get on the bus. I so badly wanted to, but what choice do I have? If I have time, I'll leave him the 25 cents I got left-_

I'm torn from my musings as the door sighs on its hinges and an older man in a long, white coat walks in, a clipboard in his hand and his focus solely on the papers he's sorting through.

"Kenneth Cale?" He asks.

I nod, adding a tremulous, bitten off _yes, sir _when he fails to lift his head from the documents. At the sound of my voice, however, his eyes meet mine and I'm certain he can see the pure, unabashed terror in them.

"Jesus," he mutters underneath his breath, stepping forward to better scrutinize my condition. His hands are warm when he reaches forward to take my arm. "Boy, we are goin' to have to get some meat on them bones if you wanna make it through boot camp!"

He takes down a few notes, the scratch of his pen grating against my ears. A moment later he lifts a silver instrument to his ears, implanting two identical small pieces into them. "Lift your shirt up a little – no, no hold it there, you don't gotta take it all the way off now - and we'll take a listen to the old ticker."

I do everything he says. Breathe in, breathe out. Lie back, lift your shirt, lie on your stomach. Open your mouth, close it. He works with such efficiency that, by the time it's all over, I'm still wondering where the fated discovery is supposed to fit into this half-completed picture. He's taking notes, brow furrowed in that sort of withdrawn way that intellectuals do, as if their own thoughts are more entertaining the entirety of the world around them. I sit in half-silence, listening to the footsteps of the other men outside move onward. If only I could make it through this one step…I'd be one of them. Physically, perhaps not. But in spirit – I would be a part of them.

Heart swollen, mind reeling, I chew on a small and telling smile. If I could just make it…if I could just-

"Well, Kenneth, it seems like, besides your weight, everything is in order," says the doctor, his voice colliding with the supple pliancy of my wistful thinking. "The preliminary that your local doc says that you passed your hernia test. No problems with the ol' sportin' gun, huh?"

He laughs, but when I fail to catch the intricacy of his joke, he coughs and sputters on it a little bit, moving onward. "No need to look at those again. Everything below the belt is workin' just fine," he pauses, grinning at me, unspoken congratulations in the gesture. "Your heart's fine too. No murmurs, no irregularities, nothin'. It's as healthy as a horse. All I can say is _eat _boy and you'll be just swell."

After jumping off the exam table, I outstretch out my hand to shake his; he seems to welcome it. "Thanks, doc. We all through here then?"

"Sure are. You keep careful out there. You peewee boys got a hell of a time proving yourselves to the muscles of the group. Just keep your head down and keep quiet. And especially don't cross your DI. He'll give you all _kinds _of hell."

I say, in reply, "thanks, sir. Will do."

"Oh, and kid?"

I turn.

He winks, eyes all alight as they settle upon me."You take good care of yourself, hear? Make us all proud."

* * *

><p><em>"I, Kenneth Cale II, have, this day, voluntarily enlisted myself, as a soldier, in the American continental army, for one year, unless sooner discharged: And I do bind myself to conform, in all instances, to such rules and regulations, as are, or shall be, established for the government of the said Army."<em>

* * *

><p>There's a thrill running through me, quick and too near painful. They haven't found me out. My secrets every bit as safe as it had been when I got here, all wrapped and silent as a guilty grave-robber. I'm <em>here. <em>Too little breasts tucked out of plain sight beneath two layers of clothes. Hair bristling like grass blades against bare skin. Even the hole-eaten flannel lies in almost perfect disarray beneath my cot, the small mountain heaps of fabric catching moon-thrown shadows just right.

I listen closely, ears picking up everything in the wake of a deep contented breath, and I can hear the notes of the nocturne playing outside - so many sounds, so many voices of the dark merging into one velvet timber. Crickets sway to their evening waltz. The air fat and sleepy with the hum of mosquitoes filling it to the brim. Far away, dimmed by the cloak of distance, the mournful call of a newly awakened owl.

Everything is peaceful -

Beside me, a sleeping Eugene Roe calls softly to no one at all

- and I'm still here.


	4. Cry Medic

A/N: Another update, as promised! I think I'm starting to get to know my character a little better. She's revealing her personality to me slowly. So far, this is only a small development in the story. I'll delve more into action and boot camp in the next chapter. I know there's not much dialogue and too much description/inner dialogue, but I promise there will be more interaction with the other characters as I go along! Thanks for reading, by the way, and I appreciate your feedback! I'll reply to your reviews as soon as I can. :) Enjoy!

Disclaimer - I don't own Band of Brothers. It belongs to Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Story based off TV Series, not the IRL!men themselves.

**_*Formerly entitled The Medicine Man._**

* * *

><p>Time is starting to dig into the slow, aching sprawl of summer.<p>

Already, we've made progress. Compared to when we first started - chests heaving and feet beating out of time against the earth and everyone gasping for each breath and clutching for each heartbeat – well, we might as well be championship athletes. Still can't shake Sobel, though. Still can't prove to him we're worthy.

Speaking of Sobel. I can say very little about the man as I know so little about him in turn. He's earned himself the title of cruelest son of a bitch that ever walked these parts and that's all that can be decidedly said for him. Most of us are convinced, still to this day, that he's got the devil hidden in him somewhere and that's why his eyes are so dark and his temper so much like fire. He drives us up Currahee mountain and works our legs and arms to the bone until we're sure they'll fall clean off.

Exercise after exercise, course after course – we've lost count of how many pigs that died to have their guts slathered over the ground. The conservative farm girl in me loathed to see such waste. It could've fed my family for a week, if we ate sparingly and salted the rest and stored it for later in jars of vinegar and more salt.

If anything can be else could be said for Sobel, in his favor, if there is any such favor to be salvaged for the hateful brute, it is that he picks on the majority of us equally. From the tallest to the smallest of us, we're all created equal under the eyes of our vindictive and sadistic CO. None of us are spared, not even 2nd Lieutenant Winters, who, as time goes on, I'm beginning to see bears the brunt of Sobel's unbridled fury.

Life, for the most part, is hapless routine. Wake before dawn; run until the marrow of our bones begin to throb, perform calisthenics until our arms turn to rubber,; training exercises that challenged every physical border that we were forced to cross until there seemed none left to overcome. This takes up the majority of our existence. There is little else for us to look forward to but the gradual moving forward of conditioning. Coming closer to the end of the tunnel, looking for the relieving light. In the meantime, steadily, we grow stronger - in body and in mind.

Weekends are a rare commodity. More often than we should like, our passes are revoked for small offenses, such as scuffs on our shoes and creases in our fatigue trousers. Sundays, some of us attend church, and often I see the black-haired angel from the station among the masses, his eyes staring straight ahead at the crucifix that stands before the congregation. Never sightlessly, though. I've come to decide that he never looks on anything without seeing it, without knowing its face and giving it the comfort of knowing it is real. Even when he is thinking, when it seems he's away from his own body, wandering the twisted labyrinth of thought, he is rooted to reality by what he sees.

Sometimes, I watch him from afar, this quiet soul, considering the possibility of his not being human. It's a lunatic ideal, to be sure, but if one was to truly perceive him, not just the superficial coat of silence he wears as a protective sheen or the air of distance that he keeps over him like a shroud – well, then, perhaps they would not feel so strange to consider him a messenger of Heaven.

I've always believed in angels, even so far as to believe that they walk the earth in clothes of skin and eyes bright with human soul. But the prospect of immortalizing such a perfect faith is so daunting, even with the face of truth staring straight back at me from the black pits of doubt. It's why I attend mass so consistently, listen to every word, and whisper into my pillow my pleas to God to forgive me – the more I watch him, the higher the pedestal I've put him upon begins to grow.

Eugene Roe. That's the name he was born with and the name he will eventually die with too. Gene, some call him, the ones assured enough in self to brave the otherworld of intimacy with such a white silence being. In passing, I've heard his Christian name very sparingly - much less the shortened version of it - and only in the form of Winters' mellow voice. Mostly, he's kept at a distance by the others, arm's length, included in no jokes and no laughter is shared with him. They call him Roe to solidify the certainty of their lack of relationship with him. The others, I think, respect him as a figure, but to consider him a shy, lonely man is out of the question – as there is no logical answer to base this inference on in the first place.

But Eugene Roe, he works his way with softness into the hearts of the men. He hardly cracks a smile, but when he does, it's a celebrated affair, one that moves too quickly into passing for much of anyone's taste. He never stays too closely by to let any moments of humanity be enjoyed by the lot of us.

More often than not, he can be found keeping to himself, shining his boots with only a cigarette and a brush for company or writing a letter home. On the weekends that we are actually given weekend passes, which, as I have said, are few and far between, he's been seen walking on the beach, digging his bare feet into the gray sand, tilting his face toward the sun as if in worship. I can picture the soggy gray waters lapping at his pale skin, drifting over his liberated feet and then receding, like bowing before a celestial force, as it bows to the moon and the hands of God.

My father would disapprove of such nonsensical, idolatrous thinking, though he would tell me so in wisdom and patience. He might not be perfect, but he knows the intricacies of faith and its set of rules. And I would tell him everything so that he could lead me away from my own disastrous conception of what is, and will always be, a mortal man.

But anyone who has seen the boy work his healing hands over a wounded spirit might not think me so crazy in the end.

* * *

><p>My reverence for Eugene Roe, I think, stems from a brief moment between the two of us. It happened about two weeks into boot camp. And my idolatry, as I've so properly deemed it, flourished from there.<p>

Chow is, without a doubt, the most anticipated event of the day. It's a time when a man can escape the ridicule, the demands and the persecution of training with Sobel. Eating is a favorite pastime of most men, but it's more than that. It's solitude. It's companionship with the people you've grown close to, forged bonds with in the midst of suffering (arguably, they are the strongest of bonds as they have seen the worst together and, in turn, know the worst in each other in witnessing the fact of it). It's having time to mull over your thoughts and be selfish for a little while, to indulge in the creative influence of the individual. We've been taught to act as a whole for only two weeks at that point and after living as singular human beings for the duration of our lives, permitted to exercise every will, every whim and every desire, answering mostly to ourselves and our own decisions, the reconditioning to think as a unit had been hard on us all. Already, we'd begun to crave time to ourselves or with our friends.

I forced myself to stay far away from any roaring laughter, any gathering of crowds, though I craved interaction with other human beings. I remember glancing over at them in the middle of their clapping and trading of cigarettes and wide pumpkin grins, wishing I could be with them, talk to them, be _like _them.

It's a sort of rule. An unspoken law, but nonetheless enforced by even the greenest of recruits. If you don't make an effort to belong ,then they don't make effort to include you. From the beginning, I made no attempt to accept their offers of cigarette olive branches and bits and pieces of conversation. It was my own fault that I couldn't be with them; I reasoned with myself, reminding the bitterness inside of me that it was safer this way. It's safer.

Sitting next to a window had its benefits. Outside, the sun shone, letting the camp catch a sort of appealing light, making it lovely somehow. I could look out there and deter the effects of my loneliness somehow. The light streamed in here, squares of it breaking off into shadows as the table stretched inward toward the middle of the room, but I was situated in such a place that I could sit in its warm illumination. A piece of paper was sprawled out before me, empty of any thought or salutation, and I was beginning to be frustrated with my own fear of my father discovering my whereabouts. I wanted to let them know I was safe, but what if they found me? What if, somehow, they traced me back here and made a fool of me? It was selfish, thinking such things, but I was too invested in my travesty now to go back to the way it was.

With a most uncertain determination, I pressed the pen to the paper. _Dear father. _And then stopped.

The sound of a delicate tread came toward me and I covered my letter with my tray. Even if there weren't any details worth knowing on it, I still didn't want to be caught in a moment of weakness, when anything could be read in my features, anything at all if they looked hard enough. At once, as I glanced up to receive the visitor, my heart leapt. I didn't know who it was, but I had been so starved of attention those first few weeks that I'd be happy to hear anyone's voice, even the slightly buck wild Liebgott who was famous for his fits of temper and his right hook, equally famous for his left. Stories circulated about the units telling of his infamous brawls, though they were kept secret from the officers (part of me wondered if Winters knew, as Winters seemed to know everything). Nonetheless, interaction with a warm, breathing being was welcomed, and even more so was the face of the man that approached me.

I hardly had time to process who it was before a piece of bread was put on my tray, the pale hand flashing before my eyes like a blinding white wraith. The voice is what got me to realize who the donor was. "You best keep eatin' there, Jonas. Too thin. You best keep some meat on you with all that trainin' we gotta do. You're too thin. Keep eating. Go on now, _eat_."

The Cajun lilt had moved onward with the body of its owner. I watched as the dark head and the warm dark eyes disappeared from my view as quickly as they had come.

My entire body seemed to swell with hope and, for a moment, I forgot the troubles I'd inflicted on myself and watched him slide into an empty slot at a table nearby. He was unaware of the way things moved on about him, without him, paying no mind to anything but solitude and the warmth of food rising before him. Like everyone, he had his rituals, his preferences concerning how he spent his free time, and he attended to them with grace and expertly contained satisfaction. I'd never in my life eaten a piece of bread with such gratitude, not even when I was starving.

I don't think he remembered me from the station.

Or, if he did, like with everything else – he went about knowing it quietly.

* * *

><p>After allowing some time for deliberation on behalf of our superiors, the 'upstairs men' as some called them, we were assigned a specialty. Some of us were allowed to choose, if space was available after the priority men, those with talents pertaining to the specialty, were all given assignments.<p>

Most of us, as my father once put it so eloquently, had to 'eat shit and die' and try to make the best of our chosen obligations. Some got mortars, other machine gunner posts. Some were simply given the position of rifleman, a less desirable task as they were said to be thrown into the shit core, the frying pan, the eye of the storm. Another undesirable position was that of medic, perhaps the least understood and yet one with much responsibility as the lives of the company depended upon them.

I've been chosen for this position.

As word has it, Eugene Roe has been picked for the job. Ralph Spina is also said to have been selected.

We're told that we'll still participate in combat training in basic, though, to my ignorance, it seems a waste since we'll never hold a weapon, let alone fire one. Regardless, we'll learn everything the infantry boys learn and every once in a while be reserved for sick call, where we will be expected to complete a shift in the clinic treating any and all military personnel in need of medical treatment. After the conclusion of boot camp, we'll be transferred into a separate medical attachment and train apart from the rest of the boys. We'll be sorted down into companies, batallions and platoons upon receiving our wings.

_If you get your wings, you'll get your assignments. Work hard, pay attention and you'll all have a place in no time. You'll all belong somewhere. I promise you that. But it will be hard. To the rest of the unit, we're pill pushers. Morphine jockeys. Prove to them you're not just an empty arm band. _

The explanation is brief and to the point, allowing no room for questions. It's not our place to question. If we pause to entertain doubt, suspicion, any sort of uncertainty, it could jeopardize the chances of survival for our men. It's our place to run, to never look back; to throw ourselves into the thick redness of battle without weapons, without means of self-defense but our hands against the bullets and the bombs and the exploding shrapnel. We run for not our own lives, but the lives of others.

The boys take to calling Eugene Roe by a new name. They call him Doc – never Gene, never Eugene, not even Roe anymore. Simply Doc, as if he slips further and further out of the circlet of their simple understanding. They are all smart, the lot of them, but perhaps Eugene Roe is too far away for them to comprehend. Like a lighthouse on the horizon, amongst the jagged cliffs that swallow up all hope of easy entrance, and all he is to them is a blur of black and white and warm blue darkness. Maybe someday he'll come to them and explain it all. Maybe he won't. There's just no knowing him without his translation, his help.

That night, at the end of the day in which I find out I've been chosen as a medic, I write without a return address to my father. An anonymous note with only my name to reveal to him its author.

I tell him how scared I am, what selfishness drove me out of his protection...and in but a few words, I convey to him how I miss them so. I never sent it; I hadn't the courage.

I tore it up the night I'd decided to keep it here with me.


	5. The End of an Era

A/N: Here's the next installment! Like I said on my profile, I've edited the first few chapters a little. We're now into November and out of boot camp. I'll be focusing on the training medics go through until chute training at Mackall. Hopefully we'll get to D-Day by ch. 10-15. Thanks for reading everyone! :)

**I _will_ edit this later. And also, if ANYTHING is inaccurate, please let me know! I'll be happy to learn something new (research on this stuff isn't going as well as I'd first hoped).**

Disclaimer - I don't own Band of Brothers. It belongs to Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Story based off TV Series, not the IRL!men themselves.

* * *

><p>The further we slip into our duties as men of morphine and soft hands on raw wounds, the more we realize that, in our line of work, there are rules. Not regimental regulations that are drilled into our head by loud voices and stern warnings of consequence; these rules, I am to understand, stem from the heart of human nature itself and its struggle to understand mortality.<p>

For now we're safe from them, but a time will come when we won't be able to hide; we'll be surrounded on all sides by the suffering of our company and we'll have no choice but to turn and confront our own reservations concerning the act of dying and how to prevent it.

Already, we've had a taste of what we're supposed to be waiting for. In small doses, of course, but nonetheless they're there and we can touch it with gloved hands and try to gauge what our reactions will be during the height of panic in equally small doses. There's no telling how a man will react to the utter chaos of his first step into the otherworld of war. All we can do is listen, learn, practice and wait for experience to take up close residence with ignorance.

The rule, as we've heard, is never to grow to close to the ones in the line of fire.

It's hard rule to follow. After all, it's only natural to grow attached to men you see every day, after hearing their laughter and the sound of their voice; when you hear their jokes, both good and bad; when you become so accustomed to seeing their face and feeling the yielding weight of their presence around you like gravity that, should a day pass without them near, you realize the hours feel so empty and useless when they're gone.

Acclimation grows to affection. Affection, in turn, soon turns to love. It's so faint, the transition, that you have to press your head to your heart to perceive it. But the logic of anatomy can't reach down that far into the chaos of feeling. We simply have to endure the suddenness of it all.

The more we learn that we will be the closest the men have to making it out of the boiling pot of battle alive, the less certain we are of ourselves in the face of such a task when the time comes to deliver them out of danger. It's the kind of realization that crawls over you in the night, when you lie awake trying to grope through your own innocence to find understanding that just isn't there yet. Then it finds you, sinks into your soul like a rock of burden, and then you wish you'd never known. It's _you_ that's going to save them, pull them out of the dusky threat of death, and your arms, your hands, your soothing words, are their saving grace – the difference between breathing and having their every hope to just see one more day sucked out of them by the void death leaves in its wake.

In the meantime, we treat small, superficial wounds like scrapes on knees, splinters from scaling the log wall, shallow cuts as a result of catching skin on anything sharp kicked around in the dirt. And all of this we do outside of sick call duties we've yet to be expected to perform. Our aid kits consist of clean bandages and stashed alcohol. Our patients, victims of the daily accidents that are bound to happen during basic training. And our aid stations? Off to the side of an obstacle course, behind the four walls of our barracks, even perched on the long benches during chow. The men have taken to calling on us any time that we're needed. They have no reservations about making us feel wanted, respected, even necessary as important members of the company, regardless if, as a general rule, we seem a little standoffish compared to the rest of the friendly lot.

"You know," he says, so faintly that I almost can't hear him, but I know he's talking to me by the way he tilts his head a little in my direction. "Come Monday, we'll be givin' up our rifles for good."

The gravity of it all hits Eugene Roe so hard that I think he must've stopped breathing for a moment during the silky, sultry hours of early morning. It's Saturday and our first weekend off in what feels like forever, but has only been a few weeks. We're inching closer and closer to the end of boot camp. Soon, we'll be detached from the boys.

Some of us fear that, though we'll rejoin them in time, it won't be the same. Some places won't fit like they should, like they once did. The old glue that held us even barely together won't stick at all anymore. Everything will change, yet all at once everything, in aesthetics and texture and essence, will be the same. It's us that will have undergone the staggering transformation, the kind that inflicts subtle alteration too far beneath the skin to see at first, but it's there; it's lurking in the darkness of conscience.

Not them. Us. We'll be separate from them in ways even they can't understand for forever – a different species of soldier as a whole. The trigger we pull won't cause pain, but instead inject calm and numbness where pain thuds sharply with a pulse all its own.

Hours must have passed. Eugene's chest rises and falls with ease; its rhythm ebbs and flows like waves that are pulled to the shore. The eyes of the black sky fix restlessly upon our dreamlessness, questioning the blank stares tearing holes in the ceiling. Eugene's mouth moves with broken Cajun and nervous prayer. Around us, the peaceful snores of our bunkmates fill the slightly chilled, early November air. Eugene moves a little, upsetting a rusty spring in his cot. I turn to look at him; in the moonlight that floods through the window, I can see his eyes are glassy, as if from shock.

"You should get some sleep," he says when he becomes aware that I'm still watching him.

A hint of desperation skirts the edge of his slow, sleepy drawl. He must've thought he'd been alone in here, safe to let his guard down, and he'd done so without checking the cot closest to him. I'd witnessed him in a state of weakness, a nakedness of sensation; it's where everything he's feeling, he's fighting, answers he's been searching for, are laid open and bare to the angels in this room and he's asking their forgiveness for allowing himself to hesitate in matters of faith.

For a moment, I dance around my own suspicions, wondering to myself if they'd be able to hold their own in any sort of revealing light. And suddenly, I find myself asking him a simple question. It's one nobody ever thought to ask him, perhaps because it never crossed their mind that the man who they saw in their mind as their healer, their protector, their ultimate savior could ever be anything less than untouchable, immortal even, in their eyes.

And yet, the longer I mull it over, the more it becomes apparent that it's one he needs to hear the most, especially in the voice of human sympathy. "Eugene, are you all right?"

He never replies, not directly to my inquiry, but turns his dark head, soft eyes filling with something like revelation, as if he's truly seeing me for the first time. I don't ask him to decode the transient glistening; maybe it's just a catch of the starlight. What matters, anyway, are the words that follow soon after.

To himself, gently, he smiles as if to cushion the blow of unease that strikes his pale cheeks. It stings them stark red. "No one ever calls me Eugene."

And for a moment, the pedestal falls like the tearing down of a marble stone statue. The protective shell of secret worship that I'd swathed over Eugene Roe comes crashing down with it for just a flashing jerk of time. I can just see the cracks of it in his eyes as he watches me, studying my face as I study his, the places where I can see his bare skin, and wonder if he's just as stubbornly lonely as I am.

We seem to come to an understanding in each other, that we're both animals of solitude, sacrificial lambs meant for the sacred realm of martyrdom. Consciously we distance ourselves from the men for the sake of different causes and different reasons, but when whittled down to the foundations of it, we're both searching for the same solutions to our self-inflicted pain. Here and now, we find ourselves faced with the same answer.

The path we wander is chosen not by us, but _for_ us by unseen councils of fate beyond this world.

I don't know how long we both lay there facing each other in the dark, soaking in our own private discovery, but when I find myself awake and daylight presses upon me, he is gone. His bed is neatly made, the boots beneath his cot disappeared, and all that remains of his presence is the shape of his head still imprinted into his pillow.

* * *

><p>The following Monday, at 0800 hours after the usual run up Currahee and PT, the medics all report to the Storage Racks to turn in their weapons. I walk beside Ralph Spina, my rifle pressed against my jowl and I can almost feel its metallic purring against my shoulder. All I can think of is the way it fits so easily into my form; it's unnerving, the perfect lining up of wood and metal and springs against muscle and skin and capillaries and at the same time morbidly fascinating to think about. God made man – man made war. We all must have some part in the art of creation, I suppose, to feel as if we're close to our own creator. But where God shaped us with inherent potential to become something beautiful, it seems man is only capable of thinking up new and perfect ways of carrying out its acquired taste for destruction.<p>

"It makes you wonder, you know?" Ralph says to me, his shoulders bobbing as he marches along.

Being much shorter than him, I have to lean my face toward the sun and squint through the blindness to hear him properly; with the barricade of helmet between his voice and my ears, it's hard to hear much of anything sometimes. "Wonder about what?"

He shrugs, taking on that pursed look of a man at war with an illogic. "Why they shove a rifle in our faces, teach us to use them, and then take them away."

Someone behind us, in a very loud, opinionated manner, says, "cause they don't want no sharpshooters on their hands!"

Laughter bubbles amongst the small ranks. We've been sorted into columns of three and one long row. Eugene Roe glides like black Cajun silk on my right. Spina, on my left, executes his usual farmhand swagger – a sort of rolling display of confidence that catches him in the crossroads between outspoken adolescence and manhood. It's certainly an interesting spectrum of grace that I've stumbled upon. The muteness of Eugene's steps mirror his lack of input in the conversation.

One of the more learned among us, a slight-framed intellectual from up north, butts in, "actually, it's only a safety precaution. According to the agreement outlined in the Geneva Convention, a medic is not permitted to carry arms. Nor is the enemy allowed to shoot at him."

Ralph seems unaffected by the news. "Is that so?"

In front of us, a man shakes his head, muttering gloomily to himself. "Fuck, guess I'll have to ship my Colt home."

"You? Leave your Revolver? Might as well send your dick home too," the tall fellow next to him chuckles amiably, but his words teeter over a sharper, more mischievous tenor. "It'll be as good as useless without that sidearm of yours to show off to the dames!"

As the stick-straight composure of the instigator in front of us collapses in peals of laughter, his insulted friend gives him a small shove and a glower too close to murderous to be anything remotely gracious. "Shut up, Kay," he grumbled bitterly. "No one as'd ya for your opinion!"

Everyone drifts nto a sort of companionable hush as we near the Racks. A supply officer in charge of keeping inventory awaits us; he receives our instructor for a debriefing of how many weapons he should expect to receive from the lot of us, both men glancing momentarily at us and that feeling of being talked about wafts over me like a strange, deadening breeze. He nods once to indicate he's listening intently, though the glazed sort of look in his eyes is a blatant tell that he's operating on underwhelming half-interest. Throughout the debriefing, he nods twice, and upon receiving the information he needs, jots something quickly down on his clipboard before turning and heading into the storage unit. We all follow on our instructor's command.

Even over the sounds of shuffling boots against the creaking wood, our instructor has no trouble making himself heard above the racket. "Make sure your rifles are unloaded, place them on the racks and reform columns of three outside. Wait for my orders."

Like properly trained up attack dogs, we do as we are told.

* * *

><p>By lunch, it's like they've all been friends their whole lives.<p>

Much amusement and teasing and many broad, approving grins have been passed between them, like secrets only they may understand. Even before the transition from boot camp grunt to medic in training, most of the men had already begun to nurture the first bloom of friendly attachment to the people that surrounded them on a daily basis; the ones who cast the same disgruntled looks at each other between columns; who throw back their heads and let the jealous high mists above them observe their unashamed laughter when a moment passes in which they can be human again for a blink of a second.

They're unafraid of what the fates would allow – should they die in combat, sustain wounds that would cripple their body and soul for eternity, or live without a scratch on them. None of that matters to them. For now, they're unafraid of what demons prowl beyond the borders of their security of conscience. They live in the moment. On the surface, they appear unaffected by the responsibility of life that awaits them on the fields of battle.

Only Eugene Roe remains as the distant kind. Like a wounded animal, he curls in on himself, eyes cast downward in stubborn subservience as he reads a letter in his lap. His food is untouched, not even ruffled by the prongs of his fork. For a man that devotes himself so wholly to the cause of caring for others, he invests so little care in his own well being.

For a moment, I deliberate the groups around me, how their faces glow pink with the light of mirth. Eugene Roe, in stark contrast, sits alone, pale and warm and like a solitary beacon amongst a sea of pleasant, relaxed company.

I pick up my tray even before deciding fully to go over to him. No one sees me as I cross the no man's land that makes up the distance between him and me.

He looks up the second I sit down, confused at first by my unexpected arrival, but settles into the idea of having me here with him rather quickly; for what seems a suspension in the slow passing minutes, it's only us. We share a cautious smile of sympathy amongst ourselves.

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you," I told him, urging his tray forward. He looks at me with the same eyes my father used to fix on me when I was but a little girl and the closeness and the remembrance that the expression evokes causes a painful stirring deep within me. "I never thanked you for what you did...for me, you know?"

Eugene Roe's hand lay open, palm-side up on the surface of the table; I pick up the eating utensil and place it gingerly into the cradle of his callused palm.

He tries a smile, but it fades too quickly to an absent smirk, and the way he watches me is like that of a gentle protector, a guardian of the lost and weak and broken. He is an angel, I think...but of the human kind.

To the beat of his mild-mannered, musical drawl, he says to me, "and you never had to neither_._"


	6. And Slowly Comes Sympathy

A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry it took so long to get this update out. I got a little distracted by _Thor _but I'm back. This is the longest chapter yet! So, just to give you a little heads up about where we're at timeline-wise, we're now at Fort Benning and we've begun jump training. Mackall is coming up soon, next chapter I think, and so is Aldbourne. Enjoy!

Disclaimer - I don't own Band of Brothers. It belongs to Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Story based off TV Series, not the IRL!men themselves.

**_*Formerly entitled The Medicine Man._**

* * *

><p>It's quiet here. I can hear everything and the noises seeping in from outside feel bloated and strange against my ears. It seems like, if I stopped moving, let the dust of sound settle, I could feel the very earth breathe as her musky insides shift softly beneath my feet. The ancient southern tradition of enjoying life has been sucked out of this place; it's bone dry. I've nearly forgotten how to stop and let the waves of time pull me under and into its sobering tide.<p>

Behind me, the rows of cots line the walls, all of them neatly made, no wrinkles to be found (or else Sobel would have our asses on shiny silver platters). The shadows of individual footlockers squat beneath them. Everyone had been pushing and shoving and shouting at one another on their way out of the barrack, eager to be released from the camp. A whole new city lies sprawled out and lit up and all for them as the sun is swallowed up by a pale moon sky. It didn't matter that we had only just completed a three day march across Georgia for the relocation (only four days have passed since we left Toccoa and Currahee for good). We haven't had a weekend pass in a month. Some of the boys have been toeing that dangerous no man's land of restlessness; most had already gone stir crazy.

The sky is seared a smoking blue with the settling of dusk. Ashes of sundown scatter across the camp and then there are the brilliant colors of heaven still burning.

I close my eyes, swallow down loneliness when it comes, and try to envision home in the middle of all this. The unfamiliar dirt and the simmering warmth and the hollow sound of the wind brushing up against the sturdy barracks. A few breaths and I'm there – I'm home. The ribbons of salt hanging heavy on the air is father. He's only just coming in from a long day of work on the farm.

I can still feel his crumpled overalls in my fists as I follow him inside, growing stiff and thickening with my own sweat. I've been out with the ponies all day, against father's wishes, but I never could tear myself away from them. I had always hoped I would meet the promised one, the one I would train up to be the best racehorse man has ever known.

The little girl in me had pieced together some patched up delusions of the great races, like ones I have only heard of in father's stories when the crickets play and his voice dances with them. Of course, the older I became, the further away these stale dreams grew as well.

And then, tangled in the potent salt, there is the smell of home. Mother is cooking the watered down version of gumbo that always burned on the way down but settled like feathers in the belly. Her apron would be stained with the faded red spittle of bleeding tomatoes. Flour coats her tanned skin in thick white dust. Golden stringy hair would fly all around her, framing the careworn face, and she would always laugh with father.

_How strange it must be for you to have been married off to Medusa. _

In turn, father would smooth out the chinks of insecurity in her with the wizened affection that grows between husband and wife.

The click of a lighter flickers through the haze of memory. I follow it out, back out of myself, straying far away from the lure of the past. Dusk is erasing all traces of sunlight now from above me.

It's a jarring sensation, thinking you're alone with just you and your thoughts, and it's so sudden when you realize again that you share the world with so many, too many to count. My eyes fight against the lack of light, looking for a way back into clarity. And I saw him.

Against the backdrop of fire-stricken horizon, he is just a black thing. A shape with no contour. A shadow with no body for it to chase. Smoke coils outward from him, but from here I can see no mouth from which it could rise. It is a content merging with coming night. The figure has no fear of being lost in the black blindness of its heavy cloud.

It's strange to see much of anyone around here after passes have been given out and the mob has dissipated from the grounds. Strange for anyone to linger, unless they have no one to turn to, no place to go but inward, and reflection overlaps the need to tear down the towering loneliness where it stands.

I cross the small stretch of empty space between us, having no pressing desire to be anywhere else but where my feet may take me. The crunch of the dirt beneath my boots does nothing to revive him. And I realize, as the black hair and the pale skin stretches out to fill up my eyes, it isn't so strange anymore that this shape should stay behind.

"Didn't have anywhere else to go?"

Eugene hardly moves, he just stands there, unblinking and unmoving and I wonder how he can stand so perfectly still. Only the choking burn of his cigarette fastens him here, into this moment.

"I was thinkin' about goin' over to the church," he mumbles wearily. "Confessing."

"What were you thinking to confess?" I ask.

He looks over at me, the cigarette still dangling from his hand. "Nothin' too bad I don't think."

For a long time I don't answer and he doesn't ask me to, not even aloud. We wrap ourselves up in our own little worlds and feel content there, cushioned by the remnants of old lives we've left behind. It's in those few fragile minutes that the stirring up of loneliness sticks to the walls of my body, stings the skin as if they were sprouting nettles growing from the stew of insides.

A slick feeling warms my eyes and my vision swims. Something about Eugene reminds me that I'm human, that the invincibility of immortals is as far from my reach as it's always been. It's the knowing that always gets me, pulls me back down from careful fantasy. It clears away the clouds from inside my head. There's just something about him that strikes the solemn chord of remembering. He tells me without words how fragile that fantasy really is.

"I miss home," I say, wording my way around choking up. "Does that make me weak? For wanting to go back?"

"It don't make anyone weak. Makes them human." He shrugs, a whorl of smoke curling itself up against the curve of his lithe body.

"Well do you have it?" I ask him, looking eagerly up into his face. He must stand a good six inches over me. "Do you suffer it too?"

"Makes it easier to avoid if you know what you're lookin' for."

"I wish I was as good at it as you are," I reply. "Avoiding loneliness, I mean."

I'd expected a snorting laughter. A rebuttal, a song and dance about how unlearned we truly are in the ways of escaping the pain of burgeoning solitude. But there's nothing. The space between us is so blank that I wish I could remember the sound of crickets to color it with. He doesn't say anything, nothing at all.

I blink up at him, trying to trace the sharp angles of his face and his thin body into the paper-thin backdrop of nightfall. His eyes are cold tonight, no strength enough for illusions of warmth, and I know he is pulling away. He's gathering himself inward, tucking himself away from my nosy prying.

Our friendship is a strange one. I wonder if I can even call it that, if I can tie myself to any of these men with such a word. Sometimes I feel it's as we're drawn to the mirror image we see in each other, to the familiarity we sense lodged in another body. We're both creatures of distance, of chosen isolation, and it's still such an unnatural feeling to reach out to anyone, to delve so deeply into another's soul.

The resounding pop of his lips releasing the cigarette brings me back to him, to us, where I am stitched into the fabric of here and now. "I don't think I'm as good as you think."

"If you aren't, why do you keep to yourself so much?"

"I don't know," he replies, shaking his head a little.

"You think you're better than all of us?"

I can hear him swallow, his throat lit up by thin twines of starlight and the full blown moon overhead. His head is bent, eyes too heavy, and almost at once I feel sorry for what I've said. A blush rises up in my cheeks at first, only to be replaced with bubbling hot shame. The heat of it licks my throat, scorches my heart, and I can't escape the pangs of it. I wish I could take it back. But that is all I can do – wish for those cruel seconds to be drowned out of his memory for all time.

It's only that I envy his ability to whisper with angels, to know them and to be like them in their strange beauty and walk in their redeeming light. And yet it's with him that I remember the existence of peace, of knowing one's place in the world and fitting into it with ease. I've lost that, I think. Only in him may I dig it up again from its early grave.

With him I feel as if the weight of every lie, of every cruel thought ever dredged up from the blackest parts of me are forgiven with only the comfort of his closeness. His presence is confession.

"I'm sorry." The words burst out of me, singed by the shame. "I didn't mean any of that and I wish I'd never said it. Don't even know why I did."

The last apology is uttered in a whisper. As if it's half-hearted, but that's the opposite of the truth; it's the one I meant the most.

He offers a tight-lipped smile that falls apart too quickly and stubs out his cigarette with a gentle stab of his boot. An understanding takes us both into its grasp, the shield of it fending off everything that tries to slink its way into the dome but us for a moment. It's a silent exchange – mine of pleas for forgiveness and his of offering it. No words are given and none are taken up to make the void left in the wake of silence less open and revealing. His fingertips graze my shoulder and that's all I remember of anything of that moment. His dark eyes return to their warmth and his pale gleaming face is eclipsed as he turns from me.

He goes away.

I stay.

* * *

><p>The boys come back late, all rowdy with excitement, the throbbing pulse of the city still beating hard within them. I pretend to be asleep so I don't have to risk answering questions. Most of the time they don't venture too far out of their comfort zone to ask much of anything. Medics and bullet jockeys haven't come to an understanding yet. Our instructors try to beat it into us, the incentive, but when force fails them they try softer endeavors. They assure us there will come a time when the boys will rely on us, on the medics. And we will come to rely on them. I don't see it yet. No one does. But their promises make it so.<p>

George Luz is the most popular of them. I mostly see him as Eugene's foil – outspoken, brazen and always equipped with a good timely joke. He had been one of the first faces of the Airborne I'd seen and it's now committed to memory, even if I can't erase the two day old stubble and the tired creases in his eyes that are usually lit up bright with mirth and mischief. There's no taming the wild hair, not even with a slathering or two of grease. It's the only thing about Luz that's remained constant. He is ever changing. Eugene is ever the same.

"Luz you lucky fuck," Perconte's voice rises above the clutter of clamor. "C'mon what was she like. Wait, don't tell me. I already know. With those hips…" He trails off into a groan of longing.

"Never mind the hips," Muck chimes in. I can almost picture the cigarette plunging into the empty spaces in between his too-wide grin. "God took his time in sculpting those knockers gentlemen. They have _no_ equal!"

"What do you know about titties, Skip?" Liebgott, with his husky, purring rasp, interjects. "You ain't never seen a pair in your life."

"Oh, and you have Joe?"

He pauses for effect. "Plenty of times."

"I call horseshit," Malarkey cuts in.

"I'd expect no less from Private _Bullshit_. You know your way around a good road apple don't ya _Malarkey_?"

"Says the angry clap-infested Jew."

"Yeah, well, I'd fucking watch my tongue if I were you, _firecrotch_. How's them crabs doin' by the way?"

"Guys, guys, come on now let's not fight over the little shit," says Luz, his words muffled by a cigarette. "We all got laid. We all had a beer. Not to mention a few good laughs brought to you by yours truly. What's there to fight about?"

Perconte added bitterly, "_you _got laid."

They had talked a little longer, but the heavier my eyes grew, the less I heard about their nocturnal excursions and the conquests in between taking shots and perusing women. Here and there I would catch snippets of conversation laced with undercurrents of shared cigarette smoke, dwindling down from great thundering shouts to sharp commentary and quips and diggers.

The last time I remember hearing their voices was when they'd dropped down to a few intermittent and tired mumbles across the room. And when I woke again the barrack was dark and rumbling with the sounds of their evened out breathing and snores.

Eugene is quiet in the next cot over. I can hear only the sharp graze of breath brushing up against his flared nostrils. It's a haunting rhythm. It must be the waning ghost of the Orleans pulse slowing in him, turning cold. It's in me too. It wails in the night when it thinks I can't hear. Soon it will be dead. What will remain of the life before this? Will it die with the native pulse? Or simply hide itself away?

I throw off the covers and climb out of the cot. My warm feet stick to the cold floor as I get up, a crumpled leaflet of paper crushed into my palm, and head for the door. I try not to make a sound as I pass each cot, taking note of the mussed heads and the closed eyes drooping beneath sleep. They all look so peaceful, none of them at odds with the past, and yet they don't know do they? What they will face?

I think of father and see in him what I will be after this is all over. If I see the end at all.

Behind me, the door leading into the barrack slides into place with the scraping of metal. It's nearly daybreak, but the weary hand of night holds fast to its keep, colors of it giving way to painted blue. The porch makes sleepy creaking noises beneath my feet and I try to step as lightly as I can over them as to not wake the boys inside. At the lip of the porch I sink down, perching on the edge and curling my knees under me. The chill of the in-between hour soaks into my bones and dampens my clothes. Again the stillness strikes down on me. I close my eyes against the mildness of its contact and the calm that inevitably follows.

The paper hasn't left my palm. It sticks to the clammy skin, waiting for release, for me to remember it's there. My hand unfurls and reveals the rumpled sheet, which I smooth out enough for two words to appear amidst the old creases. I've folded and unfolded this paper so many times the ink has smudged but still it's there. A footprint of what could have been, what might still become…

_Dear father._

The words disappear. The paper retracts back into my guarding fist.

Not today. Maybe tomorrow.

* * *

><p>With the advent of Monday comes the unavoidable. The beginning of jump training. It's the reason we came here to Fort Benning in the first place, the logic that stayed our frustration during the long and trying three day march from Toccoa to Atlanta. So here it is. The moment of truth. And it only solidifies the end of boot camp.<p>

Following the routine 0500 run with Sobel we're rounded up like cattle and led onto the training field. It's a staggering change in schedule. Usually there's a great divide, a parting of the ways with the boys taken away while the medics shuffle off into buildings to learn basic anatomy and in's and out's of first aid.

Today is different. We had been told it would be different and now it is, just like they said (the Army never lies). And yet it's still hard to wrap our heads around it, the idea of having something new to do after all those months of learning sameness.

First is the roar of the planes, tumbling through my ear drums and piercing my brain. I'm nearly blinded by their gleaming wings that flash with the light as they lift into the air. Even the smell of them (gasoline and burnished metal) hits us, stinging the air and making it almost painful to breathe. I've never been so close to a plane before. I've only ever seen them looking small and insignificant against the vast sky.

I'm so enraptured with the planes that I nearly miss the briefing. Someone tugs down on my sleeve just as our instructor slides into view, blocking out a good portion of hot sun. I look over at the man next to me. There's the strange harmony of white skin against black hair; Eugene is squinting up at the man, the blue of his eyes altogether hidden behind folds of skin.

It's fairly simple, this new routine. Count your way through the steps. _1000, 2000, 3000, 4000. _Each count is a second and each second is precious for the paratrooper plunging downward below you. One missed count and everything could be over in a quick meeting of limbs and cracking bones and blood.

Sobel stands at the front of the simulation plane, the disapproving brow just as deeply embedded in its petulant form as ever. He looks on each of us with a scowl. It's as if we are below him, the mud that sticks to his shoe and never seems to come off no matter how hard he scrubs.

Gordon is off by half of a second and Sobel doesn't miss a beat. With inhuman swiftness he slaps his sheepish victim with an _idiot _label (who apparently would have broken his kneecaps if this were a real jump) and ushers in the next man in line.

Not one of us does perfectly on his first try. Everyone makes at least one mistake, if not two. Liebgott forgets to check body position. Gordon lands on his knees. Luz breaks his fall with his hands. Even graceful Eugene fails to pass with flying colors under Sobel's unforgiving scrutiny.

"Do you have a death wish Private Roe? What the hell are you looking at? You're one thousand feet in the air! _Chin down!_"

Eugene sets his jaw, determination rising like fire into his flushed cheeks, and moves out of the way. I had been behind him. I can feel Sobel's eyes turning their full force on me. It almost feels like being squeezed in a cold iron grip and I can't breathe – I can barely move much less take air into my lungs and filter it out.

_1000…2000-_

I can feel my feet slipping off the barge, my body weight and gravity tugging me further down.

And before I can try to recover my balance, I find myself crushed into the ground and my mouth full of scratchy bitter sand.

"You just killed your buddy, Private Cale!" Sobel's harsh voice cut through the air. "How are you going to explain that to his mother?"

I move off to the side, defeated, and join the long list of men who died and lost limbs on their first jump.

* * *

><p>There is a very long list of things that, for the most part, can't be avoided when you join the army. One of them is getting wounded in action. Another is missing home. In between this scale of emotional and physical pain are lesser afflictions. A common lesser of the evils is attaining a fair number of bumps and bruises during the course of training.<p>

It's why I find myself kneeling at Luz's side now, staring sightlessly at the slow scarlet stream of blood that's pumping out of his split open knee. Because accidents happen. Because we're human and like all of mankind – we fall.

"Hold still," I say to him. His fidgeting halts for a moment as I reach for my canteen.

Luz hisses, but is resolved not to show weakness."Hey, it ain't so bad!"

Skip interjects with, "is that why you're chewing your tongue off? Cause it feels good?"

I remind myself that I have practiced on dummies before. Only twice, but this is no bullet wound, no missing limb. I take a deep breath and guide myself through the motions. Pour water over the gash to clean it. Administer morphine if needed. Sprinkle sulfa to prevent infection (I have no sulfa). Cover with bandage.

"You're not so bad, doc," Luz pants over my hands. I can feel his warm breath fanning them, kneading into the clenched skin.

I wrap the bandage around the opened up skin and tie it with tape. For a moment Luz and I lock eyes, the soft melting pot of his outstretching themselves to me. In return I offer a small nod, nothing grandiose and it passes only to him. None of the other boys perceived the wordless trade of understanding, perhaps save Eugene who crouched next to me throughout the process after he had provided the bandage. If he had noticed then he did not show it; he carried no mark of knowing.

It's a strange feeling that grips me as I watch Luz hobble off to the first aid station on the camp grounds with the help of Winters and Spina.

Maybe it's the understanding that the instructors tell us about, prophesize as if it were gospel.

Eugene's hand touches my shoulder in gentle praise. "Good work there, Cale."

But the sentiment had been so fleeting. I couldn't tell.


End file.
